


On Intelligence

by NixKat



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Hork-Bajir, POV Nonhuman, some of yall can't conceive that normal hork-bajir have interesting stories and it really shows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 07:18:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18464131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NixKat/pseuds/NixKat
Summary: A ramble on Hork-Bajir.





	On Intelligence

Hork-Bajir being aware that everyone thinks they’re stupid and just running with it.

Of course, they have no idea how to operate a ship they’ve had to be in for hours at a time for years on end, who gets bored and bother to pay attention to what their yeerk was doing. They can’t even remember what the big fancy words to describe how it works. Because that’s important to flying a ship you see.

No, they definitely don’t know how to read galard or copy the symbols they’ve been forced to look at over and over and over. They can’t even recite the alphabet for it.

“Yeah, they’re like four-year-olds.”  Any given Animorph says as the hork-bajir build a settlement in their hidden valley. As they raise their children and operate guerilla warfare and espionage without outside help. Successfully liberating scores of their own folk and starving out yeerks and somehow not falling for tricks the much much smarter slugs try to use to escape.

Sure once she’s grown and learned how operations usually work and studied the humans who find her so much more interesting for  _some_  reason. Toby becomes their war general, like her father-father-father Dak Hamee before her. They run plans by her, to see if her different mind can see anything they missed.

She is only one her. Of course. Everyone is only them. Her worry is not understood, they know what they can handle and what they need help with. They also know what they can do but probably shouldn’t because the morphers would likely get upset if they killed humans who aren’t yeerk hosts to achieve their goal. The morphers made it very clear they want to avoid the deaths of their own.

Nor do they understand why interacting with the humans and hruthin upsets her. At least they don’t until she explains it to their leader Jara Hamee.

“It’s just…“ Jara can see her searching for the words to use. Fighting through mountains of things that do not matter at the moment. Jara is patient as any good leader should be. “I can see it in the way they talk to you all. It makes me so angry. They way they dismiss all of you like you’re babbling babies who have nothing to contribute to anything other than being bodies to throw at a problem.“

Jara lightly scratches at her back like there are loose scales there she can’t reach, a gesture of comfort. There actually are loose scales there, because being a seer means seeing far, farther than all. And seeing far means missing what is right under one’s beak, like making sure one is well groomed to have no distracting itches or parasites.

“Is useful.“ He says and shrugs, a thing hork-bajir do with their neck.

Toby looks at him and looks far. Far enough to see back around to what he means. Then she snorts a laugh and smirks, “Yes, that is useful.”


End file.
